In content delivery environments, representations of video and audio are transmitted from a source, carried over a transmission medium to converters that create the physical video and audio to be experienced by users. These users have preferences for certain content or behaviours in response to certain content that is exercised by making choices from among a wide selection of different available content.
Content Providers are motivated to learn the patterns of user preference and opinion of certain content so that in competition with other Content Providers they may gain a greater percentage of user attention on aggregate, and to gain user attention when attempting to deliver specific messages, for example, the point of a story, or a commercial message to induce the user to request or purchase products.
The Content Providers may employ agencies to telephone a statistically relevant sample of the user population to verbally or through interactive questionnaires collect responses that may upon analysis suggest user preference for certain content.
The Content Delivery Providers and user preference opinion collection Agencies deliver the content and receive the preference feedback through a number of different media. Referring to FIGS. 1 and 1A, two examples of a Content Delivery Network and user feedback collection apparatus are illustrated generally by reference characters 1 and 1A.
User 10 may watch or listen to Video/Audio Television 11 and make selections using Controller 12 which communicates to Television 11 by some means 13 that may be wired, infrared, or wireless for example. Content is provided from a Multiple Channel Video/Audio Source 30 that contains multiple channels of content and is delivered to Television 11 through medium 31 which carries all the content from Source 30 to Television 11 which may tune any one of the multiple channels of content as per user selection. Medium 31 is typically coaxial cable and may be some other high bandwidth mechanism such as optical or satellite transmission for example that is capable of carrying hundreds of channels in various formats. An example of such an apparatus is broadcast television, which is widely deployed.
Alternatively User 20 may watch or listen to Video/Audio Moniter 21 and make selections using Controller 22 which communicates with Set Top Box 23 by some means 24 that may be wired, infrared, or wireless for example. Subsequently Set Top Box 23 signals Multiple Channel Audio/Video Source 32 to tune any one of multiple channels of content as per user selection. Set Top Box 23 and Monitor 21 may be combined as a single product 25. Content is provided from a Source 32 to Set Top Box 23 though medium 33 which carries only the selected content from Source 32. Set Top Box 23, in turn, either passes the content signal to Monitor 21 or may convert the content signal from the format carried on medium 33 to the format inputted into Monitor 21. Medium 33 is typically a twisted pair copper loop enabled for moderate data transmission rates of approximately less than 50 MB/s using for example DSL transmission techniques, and may be some other moderate bandwidth medium such as cable, optical, wireless, or satellite transmission for example. An example of such an apparatus is video on demand (VOD), which is currently not widely deployed.
Agency 34 and Agency 36 are motivated to collect user opinion of the multiple channels from Source 30 and Source 32. Agency 34 may typically on a period of greater than many hours telephone 14 a statistically relevant sample of the user population to verbally ask subjective questions of the users like User 10 to collect responses that may upon analysis suggest user preference for certain content and be summarized in Report 35. Alternatively Agency 36 on a similar period may employ electronic means 26 such as telephone touch pad detection signalling or computer-based internet questionnaire for example to question users like User 20 to collect responses that may be processed by an algorithm to suggest user preference for certain content and be summarized in Report 37. Either method of collecting user preference may be employed on Users 10 or User 20. Public agencies that employ such collection of user opinion include Nielsons, Arbitron, and Q-Score.
Further, a new distribution network model is emerging for the delivery of video/audio content that employs transmitting only as much content to each subsequent distribution point in a Content Delivery Network as is needed to ensure the users are provided their selected content. Referring to FIG. 2, an illustration of a Content Delivery Network and user input feedback collection apparatus are illustrated generally by numeral 40.
User 41 may watch or listen to Video/Audio Monitor 42 and make selections using Controller 43 which communicates with Set Top Box 80 via some means 44 that may be wired, infrared, or wireless for example. Subsequently, Set Top Box 80 signals Multiple Channel Video/Audio Source 50 to provide, among the content it transmits, the user selection. Content is provided from Source 50 to Set Top Box 80 though numerous network elements to be subsequently described until the specific content is provided to Set Top Box 80 which either passes the content signal to Monitor 42 or may convert the content signal from the format carried on medium 94 to the format inputted into Monitor 42. The numerous network elements represent multiple points in the Content Delivery Network where, for example, all channels are transmitted on medium 90 to Multicast element 51, which has determined a state from sensing user selection feedback to transmit only the channels that are needed on medium 91. Further, numerous additional multicast elements may exist in the network, until the final Multicast element 52 transmits the limited number of channels on medium 92 as needed by users supplied by Access element 60. Access 60 transmits the content over medium 93 that represents the last mile medium between the service provider and the subscriber environment, the content is received and may be converted by Modem element 70 if such an element is needed, over subscriber environment network 94 to Set Top Box 80. Medium 90, 91, and 92 may be a high bandwidth medium such as cable, optical, ethernet transmission medium carrying SONET, ATM, or internet protocol capable of carrying hundreds of channels in various formats. Medium 93 may be for example one of either a copper loop enabled with DSL protocol, cable, optical, wireless, or satellite transmission. Medium 94 may be a network in a user's environment such as cable, wireless, or Ethernet. An example of such an apparatus is referred to as a multicast network.
The multicast elements Multicast 51 and Multicast 52 employ a method of detecting the signals received from the user to determine the users content selection and alter their state to ensure the content selection is among the set of channels transmitted toward the user. For example, in internet protocol transmission networks, one of several protocols including internet group managed protocol (IGMP) may be employed. As such, the Multicast blocks are responsible for channel changing.
In current deployments, Set Top Box 80 is provisioned with the access policy for User 41. The Access policy is the list of content channels that a particular user may have access to. User 41 may not access content outside of this policy. Implementing access policy is recognised to be flawed and has led to issues in Content Delivery Networks such as satellite. To alleviate this service delivery loophole, the implementation of the subscriber's access policy must be moved from the subscriber's home. One possible location that has been discussed by standards bodies is to move the access policy to the multicast network element. As such, Multicast 52 may have provisioned access policy describing the content that is allowed on media 92.
The performance of this multicast network and response time to user selections may affect the user's opinion of the content and the Content Delivery Provider. Such a transmission network for example may be based on internet protocol or on a closed circuit transmission network owned by the Content Delivery Provider, as may be deployed for IPTV for example, which is just emerging and not widely deployed.
Content Providers, Content Delivery Providers, and user opinion collection Agencies are all motivated to gain a larger share of user attention on aggregate and at key moments, and to gain user attention while investing minimally or optimally in the network apparatus, however there are numerous disadvantages to the current apparatus and method. Without real time user selection information and models, the content delivery network must be designed with excess channel capacity to provide for the assumed demand for a wide range of content to numerous users. Current methods of collection of user selection opinion is based on subjective questions, and is collected typically many hours after the user has watched the content, thus is not specific and prone to error, making it difficult to assess demand, plan for, and deliver, or to remove, the range of multiple content channels available to the user, or to provide content providers input on the type of content is attention grabbing, thus what content to develop and deliver. Opportunities are missed to execute specific instructions as selected by the user from among several options presented in the content, such as requesting or purchasing new content or products associated with the content being transmitted and experienced by the user.
It is an object of the present invention to obviate or migrate at least some of the above mentioned disadvantages.